The 24 year old won first prize in the Evening Wear/Couture category, before being announced the overall prize winner for her designs, which will be showcased at the Perth Fashion Festival in September this year.

Following the completion of a Bachelor of Design (Fashion) in 2009, Ms. Zamani and Ms Hardy were first noticed when they were selected to show at the 2010 iD Dunedin Fashion Week, and the iD Dunedin Emerging Designer Awards in Dunedin.

This has been a year of fashion success for Ms. Zamani, originally from Invercargill, who recently won the Wedding Italian Style Award, in the prestigious Mittelmoda Fashion Awards, in Gorizia, Italy.

Fellow Otago Polytechnic graduate Sophie Hardy, who attended Mittelmoda, has also achieved a win at the Fashiontv Awards, taking out the Lifestyle Collections category.

Fashiontv was founded in France in 1997, and has since become one of the best distributed fashion satellite channels in the world featuring up to date and cutting edge footage, the latest fashion trends, models, parades and events.

“We are absolutely thrilled with their achievements,” said Otago Polytechnic School of Fashion Academic Leader Margo Barton. “Roxanna and Sophie are competing at an international level and winning major awards. As young and upcoming designers, they have already made some major headway in the fashion industry.”

“This is also a strong reflection of the high calibre of design students that graduate from the Polytechnic.”

The success of the Fashion programme mirrors the growth of Design at Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin with the School now hosting more than 500 students from around New Zealand and the world, and offering degrees in Fashion, Product, Communications and Interior Design